
During the course of reading this article and carrying out the various exercises, you and your 3D artist colleagues will get a practical, hands-on idea of the workflow required to create and export Shockwave 3D content using any of the major 3D applications. You will create a 3D environment, export it as Shockwave 3D, and drive around it in a virtual vehicle using the keyboard's arrow keys.
You are not required to use Macromedia Director. However, I do hope that after you get an idea of the power of the real-3D features of Director, you or your programming colleagues will be encouraged to download the trial version of Director and start working on some new and exciting Shockwave 3D content.
It will take approximately 30 minutes to finish the exercises presented in this article.
To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:
Download and unzip the free, fully functional evaluation of the CanDo 3D Modeling Training Tool. You can use this application for free on your own personal website. For training or academic purposes, a licensing program is available.
Make sure you have one of these supported applications installed. These applications all support Shockwave 3D export. The CanDo 3D Modeling Training Tool linked to above contains a sample 3D scene for each of these packages:
The downloaded training application directly supports the Shockwave 3D export of all of these applications.
Figure 1 shows examples of content created by 3D modeling students.
Figure 1. Examples of content created by 3D modeling students